Dynamist Blog

How Bourgeois Cont'd

A reader writes:

The part of Almost Girl's post that you left out in the middle of that paragraph actually interested me a great deal. You know, about arts patronage. The sort of socialite who's going to drop $20,000 for a handbag is, after all, exactly the sort who probably also sits on opera and orchestra boards and may have donated a wing to the art museum with her husband. That's not the same as shoving a briefcase full of cash at an individual starving artist, but buying artworks is; rich people do that, too.

Actually, I think that for those of us who are affluent but not super-loaded--a much larger segment of the population--Almost Girl's calculations are still somewhat off. I decided to splurge and spent $600 on two credit card wallets last week. (That's not a frequent event in my life, just so you know--though I did smirk and think, Take that, Anna Quindlen, as I handed over my credit card.) But I did so after I'd planned my holiday season budget, including what I was going to donate to charitable organizations. If I hadn't spent that $600 at Vuitton, it would have sat in my bank account. Of course, it would have been invested from there, anyway, but this way part of it goes directly to the wages of not only leatherworkers and vice presidents of marketing but also saleswomen, janitors, and security guards. I don't see why helping them make a living is wasteful.

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